Fox Vickers

Fungi have a unique intersection of uses- they are able to heal us, feed us, clothe us and clean our environment. This installation aims to examine this critical nexus, through contrasting materials and methods of making from the mystical and the ancient to the modern and synthetic.

Each of the mushrooms in this work begins as a handmade wax. The wax is pulled, carved, melted, dripped and sculpted into shape. The waxes are stylised after real mushroom varieties, exaggerated and twisted to reflect their bizarre natural beauty. Using the ancient lost wax casting method, the wax mushroom is coated in several layers of silica, plaster and grog, forming a thick mould. The wax is then steamed out and replaced with glass that spends four days melting into the mould within a kiln. When removed from the mould, the mushrooms are carefully trimmed, sanded and polished. Significant labour goes into the making of each mushroom, and their sculptural environment is carefully curated to nurture the fungi.

Chemical foam and sponge form painted sclerotium, a dreamy fungal mass that frames this strange diorama. This synthetic material forms quickly, erupting from a can with little control. Isocyanate and polyol resin mix, producing gas that causes the material to foam up, and then cross-linking in the polymer causes the foam to cure and harden in minutes. Then coated in layers of paint, glue, pigments and dripping resins these curious fungi form the antithesis of the delicate glass figures. Sculpted digitally, twisted basket fungi are dotted in between. Made with the 3D software ‘putty’ the fungi take hours to perfect and balance. Once rendered they are 3D printed with thousands of layers of plastic. Oozing from the structures is two-part resin foam. Mixed in equal parts they expand thirty times the size, engulfing the plastic frames. This catena of objects highlights the emerging junction of natural and synthetic in the fungi kingdom.

Synthesis is formed from years of interest in the fungal realm, and my work aims to offer the viewer a small look into this ever-changing landscape. Often misunderstood and demonised from years of colonisation, the secrets of mushrooms are only now being studied. As writer Sukayna Powell has said, making mushrooms contemporary is vital to integrate them into modern culture and imagination. I hope a viewer will consider the abundance of formations and small details in this dioramic world that speaks to just how bizarre and breathtaking our world can be.